LDS leader found dead after construction accident

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RIVERDALE -- An LDS stake president is dead after a construction accident Tuesday morning in Box Elder County.

Mitchell Shaw, 46, has been serving as stake president of the Riverdale Stake for the past two years. News of his death spread quickly though the tight-knit community where he served as a religious leader among many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His life was cut short when a tractor crushed him while he was working alone Monday.

For the last two years, Shaw ran his own business of extracting minerals from ponds at Promontory Point. When he did not come home Monday night, worried family members went to the Box Elder property and discovered Shaw crushed under a Caterpillar-like front loader. They think he reached under the tractor's arm when hydraulics malfunctioned and Shaw was pulled underneath the machine.

"His son just walked out and heard the front-loader still running," says Shaw's sister-in-law Heather Jensen.